A brand-new British blockade runner sinks in a storm the day she sails from Liverpool, drowning forty-seven people

01/16/1865

The 1100-ton steamer Lelia, newly purpose built as a blockade runner, sailed from Liverpool on her first voyage, bound first for the Bahamas with the intent to run the U.S. Navy blockade to a Confederate port. But she hit severe weather immediately and, despite a desperate effort to return to Liverpool, broke apart. Thirty-seven of the fifty man crew, all eight passengers, and two Liverpool pilots were lost. (By John Osborne)

Source Citation:

Chronicle, The Annual Register or a View of the History and Politics of the Year 1865 (London: F. & J. Rivington, 1866), 6-7.